Weather is much too hot for most outside work these days, but its cool and comfy in the cellar so l digg out a couple of buckets every day. I was wondering, since this sandstone bedrock is old ocean floor, there shuld be some fosils? I was looking for shells and snails and stuff like that but nothing showed up. I thod this sea was dead untill l realised fosils were there all along, l just didnt bother them!

Hi Kristijan, I like it. The adjustable pipe on top should work as a afterburner to burn up the gases that are created. The three pipes being at different levels could be creating a draft above the charcoal below and keeping it activated. But as the char bed gets deeper and fills up to the grate it should go out. Putting some insulation on the lower hatch door will seal it off from any small air leaks getting in through there.
Keep us posted on this new green house stove heater, that also makes charcoal fuel. Thank you for the video and your plants look great.
Bob

I think I understand the bridging issue, as there’s no movement to shake char down. I would use a sliding grate on top of the existing grate to disrupt the char bed, maintain a downward flow, and move or break obstructions.

The old kitchen wood stoves had cast iron teeth grates a bit like a paper shredder, but I think they were just meant to drop the coals.

This is most likely the case. I took the house boiler as a example, after you load it and the wood is burned, all thats left is a nice pile of charcoal, eaven sized for a gasifier. This is what l tryed to reconstruct.

I was thinking about a moveing “scraper” but decided to try without it first. Looks like it will be nesseseey.

Allso there is a problem with air inlets, they act too much like nozzles. Too turbolent enviroment in there so a lot of charcoal burns on the log before it can flake off. The idea was to have a flame around the log that blocks the air.

Im not complaining l have no problems picking tomatoes beside blueberrys and raspberrys in the woods

That was the original plan, l already had a air inlet under the grate but thod that wuld burn my charcoal in the bin and went the rout l am now. But the fact is when l open the char emptying lid and air is drawn trugh the grate, it seems to burn better/cleaner. But how to prevent char being burnt?

Hi Kristijan,
Clever heater/charcoal maker. I’m sure with a little finetuning you will be able to maximise your yield. With a similar house boiler setup as well, you could be self-sufficient on char for transportation.

I consider it a good result if you are producing heat and collecting charcoal, the yield in a way is a free bonus.

when you value all the by-products of wood burning (greenhouse heating, charcoal production …) the yield is always 100%.
it is the proportion between the two products that changes
great idea, Kristijan, I’ll try to copy you to heat my greenhouse:wink:

Indeed, the kiln neaded fine tooneing. A couple of problems occured. The choo-choo pulsating effect got stronger and stronger as things heated up. To a point it started spiting fire/smoke out the air inlet, not good. But then l accidently left the hopper lid open a couple of mm and the pulsation stoped. The whole thing started to work like a downdraft boiler. The air inlets worked like secundairy airlets burning the gas. In a couple of hour the whole hopper turned to char and the whole hopper was glowing dull red. Loading the next batch of logs in chrushed the char, made it fall in the char bin. Since the hopper is already red hot the wood starts burning instantly and the cycle begins. I filled half a 55gal drum with char in no time! Unfortunaly l had to stop the cycle becouse l feared the growbed becomeing too hot and hadnt lit it for 4 or 5 days. When the real cold starts l will be able to make lots of char.